Jack Tripper
When I was younger I often ran across a syndicated show from the late seventies and early eighties entitled Three’s Company. The interesting thing was… I guess I never really understood it until recently. Still, while I now understand the plot line more accurately that doesn’t actually make it any easier; in fact it makes it even more confusing.
I you have never watched the show, the plot goes something like this: After moving into a new apartment the new tenants Chrissy and Janet find a hung-over Jack Tripper in their home; still sleeping off the goodbye party of the former tenets. Because the two damsels in distress are apparently both helpless and foolish enough to do so, they ask Jack (whom they do not know) to move in with them to help with the cooking of all things. But here comes the plot twist. The strict landlord Mr. Roper will not allow any immoral monkey business to go on in his apartment complex and so will not allow young Jack to stay in the same apparent with two beautiful young ladies. So… to avoid the sticky business associated with Mr. Roper’s stubborn morality, Janet tells Mr. Roper that nothing smutty will be going on between them because… now get this… JACK IS GAY!
I suppose that as a small child I never would have understood the underpinnings of the show. I suppose I never really understood why it was supposed to be funny that Mr. Roper called Jack “twinkle toes” and a “fairy” as a running gag. But now that I’m a little older and a little wiser I suppose what now escapes me is how people ever found this plot line plausible. The show ran for 7 years and no one ever asked why Mr. Roper had a moral aversion to co-ed apartment living but seemed to have little problem with homosexuality?
It’s just one of those weird things I’ve been thinking about lately. Maybe it’s just me but looking back at it now I think it was probably a funnier show when I didn’t understand it at all.
